Political Quotes

“Let me say, first of all, on the face of it, the amendment makes sense. It is already U.S. policy not to pay ransom. On June 24, 2015, President Obama issued a directive: It is the United States' policy to deny hostage-takers the benefits of ransom, prisoner releases, policy changes, or other acts of concession. Codifying this policy though, without giving the President any flexibility, is not what we should be doing. There is no waiver in this bill. Things like this usually have waivers so the President--any President, this President and future Presidents--would have flexibility. But again, this whole issue, I believe, is a red herring. The United States did not pay ransom for the four Americans detained in Iran. We were paying Iran back its own money, money it had given us to buy weapons before the Iranian Revolution. I have never heard of paying a ransom using the captor's own money. It is galling, but it is not a ransom. Every mention of ransom is an attempt to politicize this issue and criticize the President, and that is not what we should be doing here. We should be putting our heads together and finding a solution. These issues are too important to get caught in partisan fights. It is not how we do things on the Foreign Affairs Committee. I reserve the balance of my time.”